Sweet Home 9, Woodburn 6
Sweet Home notched its first win of the season €“ not counting scrimmage in which the girls were forced to use players from their opponents’ teams €“ against Woodburn in water polo Monday night.
“They played very well,” Coach Craig Martin said. “They are figuring out how to play together as a team.”
Gabe Gunselman scored five goals for the Huskies, continuing to lead the team for the season. The co-ed mixture of girls and boys paid off for Sweet Home as Sami Webb chipped in two goals and Niccole Simmonds added another. Alex Stupin rounded out the scoring with one more goal.
But it was on defense that Sweet Home really took its game to a higher level, Martin said.
“The defense was just awesome. We just shut them down,” he said. “The pressure defense created a lot of fast-break opportunities and we did to them what North Eugene did to us.”
Sweet Home is scheduled to play next on Thursday, Sept. 24, at Corvallis.
North Eugene 6, Sweet Home 4
The Sweet Home water polo squad faced North Eugene, one of the tougher teams in the area Friday, losing 6-4.
“It was a very close game,” Sweet Home Coach Craig Martin said. “I think it was a game we could have won.”
The Huskies learned earlier in the week that the Oregon High School Water Polo Committee will not allow the girls to play separate scrimmages using players from the opponent’s team, since Sweet Home is two girls short of a complete squad. So the girls played with the boys, which is permissible under water polo rules.
“We rotated our entire girls rotation with the exception of Rachel (Maudlin), who was out because she was sick,” Martin said.
Sweet Home was also missing Cory Martin, one of its most productive players, who is nursing a wrist injury. Even without Martin, the Huskies had little problem taking the ball down the pool, but their shots either weren’t powerful enough or they missed the mark, going directly to the goalkeeper. Meanwhile, North Eugene built its winning margin by taking advantage of Sweet Home’s early inability to cover its fast break, when the team transitions from offense to defense.
“We’re not quite there yet on offense and shot placement,” Craig Martin said. “All six of their goals came on fast-break opportunities. We couldn’t counter their fast break at the beginning of the game and I think that’s what made the difference at the end.”
Notable, though, was the fact that North Eugene was only able to score on fast breaks, not in set plays.
Gabe Gunselman scored all four of Sweet Home’s goals.
“The kids are getting better,” Martin said. “We had a lot of shots on goal that, quite frankly, if those had gone in it would be a different score.”
West Albany 12, Sweet Home 5
Sweet Home’s boys performed “significantly better” Monday, Sept. 14, than they did last year against West Albany, Coach Craig Martin said.
“We’re getting very effective on defense,” he said, noting that the opponents’ scoring on the fast break was again the problem. Six of West Albany’s goals were on fast breaks, he said.
Cory Martin scored 3, Gabe Gunselman 1 and Derek Jaquist 1 for the Huskies.
The girls played a scrimmage using two West Albany players and won 9-6.
Sami Webb scored two and the rest came from the West Albany fill-ins, most on assists from Webb and Niccole Simmonds, Craig Martin said.
“We’re just a couple of key players away from being a very competitive team,” he said of the girls.